LIM, DANIELLE

Article III. Section 2. Searches and Seizures of whatever nature and for whatever purpose
Camara v. Municipal Court 387 US 523
FACTS:
On November 6, 1963, an inspector of the Division of Housing Inspection of the San Francisco Department of
Public Health entered an apartment building to make a routine annual inspection for possible violations of the city's
Housing Code. The building's manager informed the inspector that appellant, lessee of the ground floor, was using
the rear of his leasehold as a personal residence. Claiming that the building's occupancy permit did not allow
residential use of the ground floor, the inspector confronted appellant and demanded that he permit an inspection of
the premises. Appellant refused to allow the inspection because the inspector lacked a search warrant.
Sec. 503 of Housing Code provides that authorized employees of the City departments or City agencies, so far as
may be necessary for the performance of their duties, shall, upon presentation of proper credentials, have the right to
enter, at reasonable times, any building, structure, or premises in the City to perform any duty imposed upon them
by the Municipal Code.
ISSUE:
Whether or not administrative searches such as housing inspections are covered by the Fourth Amendment?
HELD:
YES, if without consent of the owner.
Since the inspector does not ask that the property owner open his doors to a search for "evidence of criminal action"
which may be used to secure the owner's criminal conviction, historic interests of "self-protection" jointly protected
by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are said not to be involved, but only the less intense "right to be secure from
intrusion into personal privacy." The Court agreed that a routine inspection of the physical condition of private
property is a less hostile intrusion than the typical policeman's search for the fruits and instrumentalities of crime.
But it did not believe that the Fourth Amendment interests at stake in these inspection cases are merely "peripheral."
It is surely anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth
Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior.
Under the present system, when the inspector demands entry, the occupant has no way of knowing whether
enforcement of the municipal code involved requires inspection of his premises, no way of knowing the lawful
limits of the inspector's power to search, and no way of knowing whether the inspector himself is acting under
proper authorization. The practical effect of this system is to leave the occupant subject to the discretion of the
official in the field. This is precisely the discretion to invade private property, which is what needs to be avoided.
Administrative searches of the kind at issue here are significant intrusions upon the interests protected by the Fourth
Amendment, that such searches when authorized and conducted without a warrant procedure and without consent of
the owner lack the traditional safeguards which the Fourth Amendment guarantees to the individual, and that the
reasons put forth in Frank v. Maryland and in other cases for upholding these warrantless searches are insufficient to
justify so substantial a weakening of the Fourth Amendment's protections.
Unlike the search pursuant to a criminal investigation, the inspection programs at issue here are aimed at securing
city-wide compliance with minimum physical standards for private property. The primary governmental interest at
stake is to prevent even the unintentional development of conditions, which are hazardous to public health and
safety. Because fires and epidemics may ravage large urban areas, because unsightly conditions adversely affect the
economic values of neighboring structures, numerous courts have upheld the police power of municipalities to
impose and enforce such minimum standards even upon existing structures. In determining whether a particular
inspection is reasonable - and thus in determining whether there is probable cause to issue a warrant for that
inspection - the need for the inspection must be weighed in terms of these reasonable goals of code enforcement.

It is here that the probable cause debate is focused, for the agency's decision to conduct an area inspection is
unavoidably based on its appraisal of conditions in the area as a whole, not on its knowledge of conditions in each
particular building.
"Probable cause" to issue a warrant to inspect must exist if reasonable legislative or administrative standards for
conducting an area inspection are satisfied with respect to a particular dwelling. Such standards, which will vary
with the municipal program being enforced, may be based upon the passage of time, the nature of the building (e. g.,
a multi-family apartment house), or the condition of the entire area, but they will not necessarily depend upon
specific knowledge of the condition of the particular dwelling.
In this case, appellant has been charged with a crime for his refusal to permit housing inspectors to enter his
leasehold without a warrant. There was no emergency demanding immediate access; in fact, the inspectors made
three trips to the building in an attempt to obtain appellant's consent to search. Yet no warrant was obtained and thus
appellant was unable to verify either the need for or the appropriate limits of the inspection. Appellant had a
constitutional right to insist that the inspectors obtain a warrant to search and that he may not constitutionally be
convicted for refusing to consent to the inspection.